Thursday, March 20, 2008

5 years later - Bush speech hails Iraq 'victory'

Bush speech hails Iraq 'victory'President George W Bush has delivered a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Speaking at the Pentagon, Mr Bush said "removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision". And he went on to say that the recent "surge" of US troops to Iraq has brought about "a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror".

Can you fucking believe this American? 6 weeks after invading, Bush declared that the mission was accomplished and here we are 5 years later with anywhere between 50 000-million Iraqi civilians dead, we aren’t sure because we don’t count them when they die, millions have been made refugees in their own homeland, I remember being told it would cost $50 Billion where as it is now being costed at $3Trillion, I remember voices right here in NZ braying from the right from Paul Henry to Leighton Smith, Michael Laws, ACT and National, every Talklback hosts whining that we should hump America’s leg and join in this war of terror to depose a Dictator that the Americans themselves had built, I remember those Weapons of Mass deception, the fake uranium claims, the mushroom cloud imagery that Rumsfeld would always evoke to terrify the American population everytime he opened his evil little beak, I watched lies being twisted to connect Saddam to Bin Laden when both movements hated eachother, I watched the madness of an American administration with no plan whatsofucking ever to rebuild the country they had just bombed flat, I watched smart bombs kill innocent kids, I watched abu ghraib and vomited, I have watched for 5 years the utter madness of the enlightened West radicalizing an entire religion against us and I have never been so ashamed of my own civilization, I have watched the justification of torture and erosion of our civil liberties, I have heard the new words, rendition, Gitmo, enemy combatant, have heard about secret CIA torture prisons, I have seen the corporate death merchants and military industrial complex post larger and lager profits while Dick Cheney war profiteers from Haliburton contracts and I have heard all this murder and death and destruction and greed and profits all justified by Freedom and Democracy.

Fuck Bush and fuck everyone of his followers, may you all rot in Hell for the misery and suffering you have your wrought – you and what you have unleashed is the new benchmark for civilised evil. This mindless war should never have been waged and our collective honour in the West has been forever stained.

33 Comments:

I understand the following might cause shit because its from Stratfor. Brewer and Karlos will no doubt be all over it: but I don't care. This is an outstanding and well reasoned balanced piece. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did..............................

Five years have now passed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Iraq with Sen. John McCain — the presumptive Republican nominee for president — summarized the five years by saying, “If you reflect back on those five years, it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor. We’ve come a long way in five years, and it’s been well worth the effort.” Democratic presidential aspirant Sen. Hillary Clinton called the war a failure.

It is the role of political leaders to make such declarations, not ours. Nevertheless, after five years, it is a moment to reflect less on where we are and more on where we are going. As we have argued in the past, the actual distinctions between McCain’s position at one end (reduce forces in Iraq only as conditions permit) and Barack Obama’s position (reduce them over 16 months unless al Qaeda is shown to be in Iraq) are in practice much less distinct than either believes. Rhetoric aside — and this is a political season — there is in fact a general, but hardly universal, belief that goes as follows: The invasion of Iraq probably was a mistake, and certainly its execution was disastrous. But a unilateral and precipitous withdrawal by the United States at this point would not be in anyone’s interest. The debate is over whether the invasion was a mistake in the first place, while the divisions over ongoing policy are much less real than apparent.

Stratfor tries not to get involved in this sort of debate. Our role is to try to predict what nations and leaders will do, and to explain their reasoning and the forces that impel them to behave as they do. Many times, this analysis gets confused with advocacy. But our goal actually is to try to understand what is happening, why it is happening and what will happen next. We note the consensus. We neither approve nor disapprove of it as a company. As individuals, we all have opinions. Opinions are cheap and everyone gets to have one for free. But we ask that our staff check them — along with their personal ideologies — at the door. Our opinions focus not on what ought to happen, but rather on what we think will happen — and here we are passionate.

Public Justifications and Private MotivationsWe have lived with the Iraq war for more than five years. It was our view in early 2002 that a U.S. invasion of Iraq was inevitable. We did not believe the invasion had anything to do with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) — which with others we believed were under development in Iraq. The motivation for the war, as we wrote, had to do with forcing Saudi Arabia to become more cooperative in the fight against al Qaeda by demonstrating that the United States actually was prepared to go to extreme measures. The United States invaded to change the psychology of the region, which had a low regard for American power. It also invaded to occupy the most strategic country in the Middle East, one that bordered seven other key countries.

Our view was that the Bush administration would go to war in Iraq not because it saw it as a great idea, but because its options were to go on the defensive against al Qaeda and wait for the next attack or take the best of a bad lot of offensive actions. The second option consisted of trying to create what we called the “coalition of the coerced,” Islamic countries prepared to cooperate in the covert war against al Qaeda. Fighting in Afghanistan was merely a holding action that alone would solve nothing. So lacking good options, the administration chose the best of a bad lot.

The administration certainly lied about its reasons for going into Iraq. But then FDR certainly lied about planning for involvement in World War II, John Kennedy lied about whether he had traded missiles in Turkey for missiles in Cuba and so on. Leaders cannot conduct foreign policy without deception, and frequently the people they deceive are their own publics. This is simply the way things are.

We believed at the time of the invasion that it might prove to be much more difficult and dangerous than proponents expected. Our concern was not about a guerrilla war. Instead, it was about how Saddam Hussein would make a stand in Baghdad, a city of 5 million, forcing the United States into a Stalingrad-style urban meat grinder. That didn’t happen. We underestimated Iraqi thinking. Knowing they could not fight a conventional war against the Americans, they opted instead to decline conventional combat and move to guerrilla warfare instead. We did not expect that.

A Bigger Challenge Than ExpectedThat this was planned is obvious to us. On April 13, 2003, we noted what appeared to be an organized resistance group carrying out bombings. Organizing such attacks so quickly indicated to us that the operations were planned. Explosives and weapons had been hidden, command and control established, attacks and publicity coordinated. These things don’t just happen. Soon after the war, we recognized that the Sunnis in fact had planned a protracted war — just not a conventional one.

Our focus then turned to Washington. Washington had come into the war with a clear expectation that the destruction of the Iraqi army would give the United States a clean slate on which to redraw Iraqi society. Before the war was fought, comparisons were being drawn with the occupation of Japan. The beginnings of the guerrilla operation did not fit into these expectations, so U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the guerrillas as merely the remnants of the Iraqi army — criminals and “dead-enders” — in their last throes. We noted the gap between Washington’s perception of Iraq and what we thought was actually going on.

A perfect storm arose in this gulf. First, no WMD were found. We were as surprised by this as anybody. But for us, this was an intellectual exercise; for the administration, it meant the justification for the war — albeit not the real motive — was very publicly negated. Then, resistance in Iraq to the United States increased after the U.S. president declared final victory. And finally, attempts at redrawing Iraqi society as a symbol of American power in the Islamic world came apart, a combination of the guerrilla war and lack of preparation plus purging the Baathists. In sum, reshaping a society proved more daunting than expected just as the administration’s credibility cracked over the WMD issue.

A More Complex GameBy 2004, the United States had entered a new phase. Rather than simply allowing the Shia to create a national government, the United States began playing a complex and not always clear game of trying to bring the Sunnis into the political process while simultaneously waging war against them. The Iranians used their influence among the Shia to further destabilize the U.S. position. Having encouraged the United States to depose its enemy, Saddam Hussein, Tehran now wanted Washington to leave and allow Iran to dominate Iraq.

The United States couldn’t leave Iraq but had no strategy for staying. Stratfor’s view from 2004 was that the military option in Iraq had failed. The United States did not have the force to impose its will on the various parties in Iraq. The only solution was a political accommodation with Iran. We noted a range of conversations with Iran, but also noted that the Iranians were not convinced that they had to deal with the Americans. Given the military circumstance, the Americans would leave anyway and Iran would inherit Iraq.

Stratfor became more and more pessimistic about the American position in 2006, believing that no military solution was possible, and that a political solution — particularly following the Democratic victory in 2006 congressional elections — would further convince the Iranians to be intransigent. The deal that we had seen emerging over the summer of 2006 after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, was collapsing.

The SurgeWe were taken by surprise by U.S. President George W. Bush’s response to the elections. Rather than beginning a withdrawal, he initiated the surge. While the number of troops committed to Iraq was relatively small, and its military impact minimal, the psychological shock was enormous. The Iranian assumption about the withdrawal of U.S. forces collapsed, forcing Tehran to reconsider its position. An essential part of the surge — not fully visible at the beginning — was that it was more a political plan than a military one. While increased operations took place, the Americans reached out to the Sunni leadership, splitting them off from foreign jihadists and strengthening them against the Shia.

Coupled with increasingly bellicose threats against Iran, this created a sense of increasing concern in Tehran. The Iranians responded by taking Muqtada al-Sadr to Iran and fragmenting his army. This led to a dramatic decline in the civil war between Shia and Sunni and in turn led to the current decline in violence.

The war — or at least Stratfor’s view of it — thus went through four phases:

Winter 2002-March 2003: The period that began with the run-up to invasion, in which the administration chose the best of a bad set of choices and then became overly optimistic about the war’s outcome. April 2003-Summer 2003: The period in which the insurgency developed and the administration failed to respond. Fall 2003-late 2006: The period in which the United States fought a multisided war with insufficient forces and a parallel political process that didn’t match the reality on the ground. Late 2006 to the present: The period known as the surge, in which military operations and political processes were aligned, leading to a working alliance with the Sunnis and the fragmentation of the Shia. This period included the Iranians restraining their Shiite supporters and the United States removing the threat of war against Iran through the National Intelligence Estimate. The key moment in the war occurred between May 2003 and July 2003. This consisted of the U.S. failure to recognize that an insurgency in the Sunni community had begun and its delay in developing a rapid and effective response, creating the third phase — namely, the long, grueling period in which combat operations were launched, casualties were incurred and imposed, but the ability to move toward a resolution was completely absent. It is unclear whether a more prompt response by the Bush administration during the second period could have avoided the third period, but the second period certainly was the only point during which the war could have been brought under control.

The operation carried out under Gen. David Petraeus, combining military and political processes, has been a surprise, at least to us. Meanwhile, the U.S. rapprochement with the Sunnis that began quietly in Anbar province spiraled into something far more effective than we had imagined. It has been much more successful than we had imagined in part because we did not believe Washington was prepared for such a systematic and complex operation that was primarily political in nature. It is also unclear if the operation will succeed. Its future still depends on the actions of the Iraqi Shia, and these actions in turn depend on Iran.

The EndgameWe have been focused on the U.S.-Iranian talks for quite awhile. We continue to believe this is a critical piece in any endgame. The United States is now providing an alternative scenario designed to be utterly frightening to the Iranians. They are arming and training the Iranians’ mortal enemies: the Sunnis who led the war against Iran from 1980 to 1988. That rearming is getting very serious indeed. Sunni units outside the aegis of the Iraqi military are now some of the most heavily armed Iraqis in Anbar, thanks to the Sunni relationship with U.S. forces there. It should be remembered that the Sunnis ruled Iraq because the Iraqi Shia were fragmented, fighting among themselves and therefore weak. That underlying reality remains true. A cohesive Sunni community armed and backed by the American s will be a formidable force. That threat is the best way to bring the Iranians to the table.

The irony is that the war is now focused on empowering the very people the war was fought against: the Iraqi Sunnis. In a sense, it is at least a partial return to the status quo ante bellum. In that sense, one could argue the war was a massive mistake. At the same time, we constantly return to this question: We know what everyone would not have done in 2003; we are curious about what everyone would have done then. Afghanistan was an illusory option. The real choices were to try to block al Qaeda defensively or to coerce Islamic intelligence services to provide the United States with needed intelligence. By appearing to be a dangerous and uncontrolled power rampaging in the most strategic country in the region, the United States reshaped the political decisions countries like Saudi Arabia were making.

This all came at a price that few of us would have imagined five years ago. Cheney is saying it was worth it. Clinton is saying it was not. Stratfor’s view is that what happened had to happen given the lack of choices. But Rumsfeld’s unwillingness to recognize that a guerrilla war had broken out and provide more and appropriate forces to wage that war did not have to happen. There alone we think history might have changed. Perhaps.

Within the next 20 to 30 years History will judge that he made right decision by invading Iraq. Bomber is good example of person who doesn’t believe in bringing Freedom & Democracy to Iraqi people. He’ll rather support Saddam Hussein who sponsored terrorism. (Makes Bomber Supporter of Terrorism)

And it’s not the Americans fault that stupid Iraqis / Muslims don’t understand freedom and democracy. But majority of Muslims are pretty stupid when you compare them to Jews. Muslims have only won about 0.15 (1.2Billion Muslims) of Nobel Prizes but the Jews (15 Million Jews) have won about 24% of all Nobel Prize’s.

in a thousand years, no wait better make that 2 thousand GWB will probably be remembered as the messiah.

so don't worry everyone when we're all dead it will turn out he was right all along.

only a very small minority of people are better off for the invasion and they are mostly shareholders in the warmongering corporations that have vacuumed american tax dollars up and turned them into misery.

and if you've even glanced at the american electoral system mr/ms avocado dribbly you'd realise they don't understand freedom or democracy either...

"You and what you have unleashed is the new benchmark for civilised evil". What a load of fucking shit. This doesn't come within an ant's pube of what happened in WWII. A "new benchmark" means that it eclipses Hitler. If you believe that then your comments are worthless invective. If you don't mean that then should shouldn't have wrote it.

Nice post in manufactured outrage bomber where only the victims of western 'aggression' count.

I suppose given this principle that the 3 million dead from Zaire don't count since they weren't killed by white people.

To be honest it's pretty hard to take you seriously when your moral principles don't have any consistency.

But then again I can see it from bomber point of view. He does after all work in the media and there is clearly less milage to be gained from Zaire compared to palestine-Israel (far less dead) or Iraq. It's all about what sells in the isn't it Bomber.

Saddam was murdered and it was a war crime and someone should have told Bush, Blair and Howard that they are responsible for his hanging as well!

George W's "New-World-Order" started with the new "mission accomplished" fighter-pilot-draft-dodger May 2003 "victory" only 5 years ago.The 1st Gulf War was equally a one-sided slaughter his father started but would not or could not finish off, when he had the chance.

The "War" is nearly over and the term hardly applies now as it is an ongoing campaign to victory according to Steve Hoadley, and the John McCain inspired surge has worked well and has not totally devastated and wrecked what is left of normal everyday Iraq apparently?

Saddam may have committed gross human rights violations as a Sovereign head of state in the past decades as he did crush the Kurds uprising after the first Gulf War with President George Bush.With their Gas he was also free to commit more aggressive war-like atrocities against Iran with the blessing of the weapons manufacturers in the West who supplied the arms, when he was still in favour then.

However the heavy handed way "the peace" was controlled with the lies perpetrated about weapons of mass destruction the strictly enforced U.N sanctions like the no fly zones to protect Saddams victims of revenge has meant that many in Iraq still suffer the dire consequences of malnutrition and hardship caused through poverty in punishment for this ongoing seige-like mentality of ongoing conflict.

The iron rule of Oligarchy may have held Iraq together for a while, but Bush was as responsible as Saddam for the awesome tragedy we witness on the evening news bulletins every night.We are often witnesses to the non counting of the dead civilian and innocent bodies and to the bloodshed and carnage and wanton destruction through suicide bombing; especially amoured cars and 4 wheel drives which are usually blown up beyond all recognition.

(Bhutto fell prey to this type of device unfortunately for her.However her country will be stronger for her strength and her legacy is one of returning to fight from exile and her family still carries on where she left off.)

For the Iraqi people the worst of all possible worlds has been realised from the illegal invasion and ongoing occupation by foreign powers.I am very critical of a form of green-zone inspired puppet-regime-politics after the illegal hanging of Saddam by Bush, Blair and Howard.They should all be tried for murder in the Hague by the U.N, alongside the Israeli Prime Minister (Ehud Olmert) for the same suicidal indifference to international law.

Washington, London and Canberra (and tel Aviv now Wellington is no longer part of the team of allies)should have all been compelled to pursue diplomacy first and force only as a last resort, as the Twentieth Century was arguably the American or Western Allies Century, becoming the worlds only dominant economic powers.A lesson our former ANZUS partners like Australia and America should have learnt by now however from this love of conflict is that by getting too close to super-power status on your own, a once vibrant democratic society similar to our own should still not have the right to lock up political refugees from a War they started in razor wire death camps and in the desert.

Otago University claims that Phil Goff told them we have spent somewhere in the region of over $100 million dollars supporting the U.S, Britain and Australia, our once traditional wartime Allies.

They are remembered every year by this Government and its truly bipolar supporters like Peter Dunne and Winston Peters, across the left/right spectrum.

Anzac day is an often jingoistic nationalistic fervour designed to make recent arrivals like political refugees from War unsure of their place in this their new country.

The U.N. Security Council washed its hands of Iraq and left it to the U.S. and U.K. to go it alone in violation of the U.N. Charter.To put it in a broader context the U.N. became more obedient to Washington and London after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war.

The U.S indifference of the U.N. and in particular the sage advice of the former secretary general Kofi Annan's instructions for peace led the U.S and Britain to enforce Vetoes of Security Council resolutions against War.

For over half a century now America has been pursuing a "grand imperial strategy" with the aim of staking out the entire globe and this dream of hegemonic and demonic dominance has almost taken us to the edge of extinction.

George W Bush is intensifying this crazy and irrational process fueled by laziness and greed as the final frontier of imperial control, and has led to a choice between the prerogatives of power and a liveable Earth or planet as American rulers are now jeopardising the future of the species with a denial of Climate change!

LONG HOT SUMMERS ANYONE?

It seems unlikely that we will have another Century dominated by the U.S and her friends, as it has further mired itself and her allies in the resource driven conflict for Oil to fuel their greedy uneconomical needs and wants like a big four wheel drive to cart the kids to and from private schools.They, and others similar to them over here want to reach out to other countries only through the gun turrets of tanks and helicopters, or even more lazy drivers of huge gas guzzling and road hogging four wheel drives.

There is now a discernible sense of global energy shifting away from this desire of nearly everyone with a license to drive in "the West" alongside New Zealands departure for greener pastures elsewhere, as New Zealand prides itself on human rights, social welfare and political neutrality in the Wars of aggression for greed and sloth; and we all pride ourselves on being anti-nuclear and peaceful as well supposedly.

Muslim critics of our racist governments claims to peaceful coexistence are nothing more than a pack of lies and could not be further from the truth however.Deadbeats on talkback radio are becoming addicted to stories of Anti-Muslim stereotypes and ignorance; calling them "Islamic-Fascists".

This is designed to promote fear of them and the Other and to promote more racism and fear of the unknown against mostly hard working and industrious Chinese and Indians fleeing from a military coup and racial dictatorship right next door in Fiji!

Foreign minister Winston Peters is now the equivalent of Australian racist Pauline Hanson who has been attacking Asians and Indians from the Pacific.Like his Australian cousins "across the ditch" as we now like to say putting distance between us and our nearest neighbours, Peters has become the "unofficial" mouthpiece as a minister outside of Cabinet for promoting a new form of ANZUS and other assorted pro American propaganda and violence in support of their Wars.Together with Australia we have sent troops to the Solomons and Tonga and East Timor but not to Fiji incidentally and what should be a show of force in retaliation for a racial dictatorship existing quite comforatbly now for over 20 years right next door to us down under.

They are no better than the King of Thailand or the military junta even further afield.Only recently we should have considered seriously the likelihood of and invaded Fiji to strike at the nationalist streak of running unwanted Fijian Indians out of their own country and into ours amongst the 300 plus Dairies in Auckland where they end up with the same drastic fate from our locals with the same strange racially superior beliefs that they are somehow invincible and the "tangata whenua".

WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT STATEMENT TIMMY?

We should have done something spectacular like banning Fiji from the Sevens in Wellingotn at the very least by now, but banning Davu was a good start by Netball N.Z, which has now been overturned now the netball is on the typically trans-tasman focused SKY T.V!

Instead we have become like a subordinate in the Asia-Pacific region to the Chinese taking orders from others to keep quiet like "yo Blair" did to Bush.That was so servile of him to do that to Bush and to the United States and not what a friend would do pointing out the error of your ways.Just like another sort of deputy sheriff in the Solomons and many hundreds of our balaclava clad police are still causing trouble whereever they go with their weapons throughout this troubled region as well.This has caused concern and disruption for the locally elected politicians in the region defending their own authority and Sovereignty.

LONG LIVE TAME ITI AND TUHOE!

The Australians and New Zealanders overseas now say they have been invited by the King of Tonga to suppress dissent, and calls for change; but the movement for democracy has also been suppressed with our Prime Minister assisting to do the same in the South Pacific.We are performing the role of a "proxy gendarme" according to our Muslim friends and neighbours like the Grand Mufti of the South Pacific.Our ongoing support for the other War by the West in Afghanistan and the many and expensive rotations of troops in their hundreds shows that our Nationalism based Government New Zealand First, United Future, the one Progressive and Labour led Coalition still support the murderous and ongoing slaughter of Muslim or so-called Insurgent forces in the Middle East.We are not neutral in the Wars of the west at all like we like to think of ourselves as being.We no longer support our once traditional wartime Allies, but much money has been spent on "reconstruction" efforts in the region where the Taleban blew up the relics of an ancient regime.What a waste.Bill Ralston also claims when he visited Washington himself just recently he was told New Zealands efforts overseas, especially the use of the S.A.S; had been much appreciated by the Bush Administration and the Republican party in general.They had decided to end the long standing dispute over our newly independent foreign policy.Nuclear Free!

"You and what you have unleashed is the new benchmark for civilized evil". What a load of fucking shit. This doesn't come within an ant's pube of what happened in WWII. A "new benchmark" means that it eclipses Hitler. If you believe that then your comments are worthless invective. If you don't mean that then should shouldn't have wrote it.

Let’s look at what I said, civilized evil as in OUR side, as in the West, as in democratically elected democracies, civilized evil – I am not comparing this to the Holocaust, you are – that’s a strawman argument, attacking me for words you’ve said, not mine, which sadly leads to this next comment….

anon: remember the holocaust didnt happen, or it wasnt bad. Bad stuff only happens to Muslims....Scott, this is below you, normally you are ‘Mr-play-the-ball-not-the-man’, but of late I’ve noticed you are always very quick to play the anti-mulsim card, that’s disappointing.

Then we had this

Nice post in manufactured outrage bomber where only the victims of western 'aggression' count.

My anger is manufactured????? Huh? I’m not angry about Iraq at all apparently, which is weird because I feel anger when I read what’s going on, but apparently Anon is telepathic and can see the feelings I feel aren’t what I perceive them at all, they are in fact manufactured feelings, and how come this Anonymous poster/telepath has jumped to this conclusion….

I suppose given this principle that the 3 million dead from Zaire don't count since they weren't killed by white people.

WTF? My feelings about Iraq are manufactured because I haven’t blogged about another tragedy around the world??????

But it gets better…

To be honest it's pretty hard to take you seriously when your moral principles don't have any consistency.

So now all I write is under question because I feel for one thing which automaticly means I don’t feel about something else – are you for real? Is this a cyber version of Punk’d?

But then again I can see it from bomber point of view. He does after all work in the media and there is clearly less milage to be gained from Zaire compared to palestine-Israel (far less dead) or Iraq. It's all about what sells in the isn't it Bomber.

TA-DAH!!!!! I work in the media so I am corrupt as well as having false anger issues because I don’t write about Zaire.

Incredible, I write a blog about news stories that pop up in the mainstream media, and being from the West, our media is fixated with Iraq and so I write comments about that, I am critical of the US because as the global police defenders of freedom, if they don’t play by the rules there is no way we can force China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Darfur and yes, the forces in Zaire.

But wait, it gets better with a pop psychology critique of fake empathy, If someone really wants to get a grasp on Bombers mentality they could look into this:

…and some of what it has to say is clever, but to suggest all empathy is fake is just not true, but if this is the same as the first telepathic anonymous poster (which is why I don’t like anon posts, it’s hard to follow the debate, and we will look at taking the anonymous post option off the site shortly) then they can read all sorts of things into the way they want to frame me.

AND THEN it’s off to the next anonymous poster

Great article in a left wing source which debunks several myths that bomber tends to peddle like the US was responsible for creating al qaida

Right, so this is a fairly mild article on Afghanistan in the 80s and he quotes one person who says…

Ali Jalali, a leading mujahideen fighter who later became Afghanistan's interior minister under President Hamid Karzai, told the Policy Exchange the commonly held idea that the Soviet retreat in 1989 was the moment al-Qaida and the Taliban, inadvertently armed by Washington, came into being was mistaken.

"The perception now is that the war created al-Qaida. But the spread of fundamentalism started long before, at the point when the Arab socialism movements of the 1950s and 1960s failed," Jalali said.

I don’t disagree with that, the radical threads of al-Qaida were set as early as he suggests, what I’m saying is the American’s armed that radical thread and if you had just read the bloody comments below you could have seen the comeback comment

The american covert assistance to the anti-Soviet Mujahideen in fact was authorized and began, under President Carter and his national security advisor Brzezinski, six months before the Soviet invasion, and the covert assistance was started to provoke a Soviet invasion and tie down the Soviets - See Robert Gates memoirs, cited by Chalmers Johnson in Nemesis, Holt Paperbacks, p110 akso, in interview with Brzezinski in nouvelle observateur Paris, January 1998 (fn 64, ch.3 of Nemesis)

..."You and what you have unleashed is the new benchmark for civilized evil"

Well, Germany was a civilised country in 1933 which voted in the nazis and then put jews in the gas chambers which is a lot worse than bush has done.

To suggest that bush is worse is an insult to the innocent victims of the nazis.

Hyperbole proven.

BULLSHIT! The Nazis were never civilised in any way shape or form, yes they manipulated the democratic process, but they were never democratic, which is the polar opposite to what the united states is - if you want to be an apologist for the mindless civilised evil of US aggression, go right ahead, but don't hide behind the fucking Nazis to try and make yourself feel like you've proven your point.

Go and have a coffee if you have trouble understanding the above sentence. Notice I also used the past tense which could imply a delination between the pre and post 1933 period which suggested that I regarded the post 1933 as uncivilised.

..."You and what you have unleashed is the new benchmark for civilised evil". What a load of fucking shit. This doesn't come within an ant's pube of what happened in WWII. A "new benchmark" means that it eclipses Hitler. If you believe that then your comments are worthless invective. If you don't mean that then should shouldn't have wrote it.

...right, which comes back to my point regarding anonymous posts - how am I supposed to know what you posted and when if you refuse to put a name to your posts?

As for your actual post, Germany in 1933 was hardly civil it was in ruin - and while the Nazi's manipulated democracy, they were hardly democratic - your need to disagree with my point that the invasion of Iraq was a new low for civilised Evil by using the Nazis as a counter-example is apologist for the American's in the extreme

Maybe you should google what civilised actually means before muothing off on concept you can't even define.

So what you are saying is that the weimar republic, the first instance of true democracy in germany's history was not a civilised place. What an awesome command of history you have to denigrate the first time the people of germany were not ruled a absolute monarch or a military dicatator.

...I think it's mouthing off you were trying to write - we all know our bloody history anonymous poster, on paper the Weimar Republic was one of the best designed systems in the world, but I fail to see how Facist riots and street brawls with communists during a period of vast economic withering equtes to the circumstances of prosperity found in modern day America, hence my claim that America has set the standard for civilised evil - your denial of that and your need to cling to Nazi Germany as an example to clear America of that charge speaks volumes my friend.

So where did you gain these startling insights into what sets that standards of civilised evil? Perhaps it was your perusal of the latest Robert Fisk article on the guardian or maybe the newest Noam Chomsky book or if maybe you experienced the full horror via youtube videos.

Admitedly, just as you are, I too am a chickenshit albeit a much thinner one and thus would never venture into a war zone to gain firsthand knowledge. But if you ever go to Thailand maybe you should take a side trip in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where you can take in a tour of the 'killing fields' for a nominal fee. Because the Cambodians haven't the finances to properly clean up or its a good earner to keep the fields authentic you usually spot pieces of bone in the ground. I imagine there are such sites all over Iraq from the days Saddam. I suppose you'd probably argue about moral equivilency or some other rubbish but we all have different standards, your's are simply academic and abstract and not rooted in any real experience. but a faux outrage.

...gosh, that post really sounded like a lot of backing down doesn't it? The killing fields of cambodia are an aweful place, especially when you consider it could have been avoided if America hadn't bombed the country flat leading to a massive destabilisation that allowed the Khmere Rouge to take over, odd you would try and use that example to defend America again. As to where I get my insights, it's simple, I just read a lot.

It's not about whether america caused this or that its about having an abstract intellectual concept of evil and using it so glibly and regularly so that it is divoirced from any real meaning, which you seem to do a lot of.

Therefore to say that what the US is doing in Iraq is worse than what the nazis did without having any real experience just makes you look stupid and ignorant of the facts.

So Bomber where are the Iraqis going up in chimneys, where are thet Iraqis being forced in labour camps and being worked to death?

Why not link some articles (preferably with photos) from a reputatble news source as proof that the america is on par with nazi germany.

How's that for you fucking backdown?

PS I love the way you twist an entire peoples grotesque experience under a genocidal communist regime into yet another anti-american diatribe. If you go there maybe you can tell the cambodians that and see hiow they take it.

...Therefore to say that what the US is doing in Iraq is worse than what the nazis did without having any real experience just makes you look stupid and ignorant of the facts.Where did I say what the American's did was worse than the Nazis - YOU have made that cliam, I suggested that America had set the new benchmark for civilised evil - you were the one who immediatly tried to draw the Nazi's into civilised evil where as I consider them a very unique example and not civilised at all. The term civilised evil is one used to mark 'our' evil as in the west. Your attempt to apologise for America is astounding.